In the textile industry one of the main obstacles to properly cutting patterns into fabric is related to the shrinkage that occurs during the initial washing. Generally, based on type of fabric, thickness, type of cut and other factors, different materials cut patterns shrink differently as a result of varying shrinkage resistances. When designing a textile garment pattern one method of manufacture calls for the clothing designer to supply the manufacturer the final garment measurements assuming that shrinkage has already occurred. This requires the end manufacturer of the desired garment to wash and dry the fabric on the roll so that the shrinkage occurs before the pattern is cut. This allows the pre-shrunk fabric to be assembled according to final garment measurements without any post-assembly aberrations.
Another possible method for manufacturing garments is for the designer to supply the manufacturer the dimensions of the garment with additional material calculated in such that the manufacturer can cut the fabric pattern, stitch the garment and wash and shrink it to size. In this case the designer will give specifications for a garment design that are larger than wanted so that the manufacturer can assemble the shirt with fabric cut from an unwashed roll. When the garment is cut, stitched and washed the garment then shrinks down to the desired size for the final garment specification.
This stitching of garment fabric together before the initial shrink washing gives an added texture to the garment in the form of a wrinkling effect around the seam areas of the garment, caused by the shrinking material pulling against the seam stitching. This effect is considered desirable to some fashion designers who include this wrinkled style of garments in their garment lines.
However, there are sometimes variations in the washing and shrinking process between different manufactures, caused by different washing procedures, different fabric origins and other factors. Because of these differences it is hard for a clothing designer to fabricate a single garment design in the above mentioned second method, that is to be cut and stitched before any shrinkage, that will work consistently for all of its manufacturers. Because of this, manufacturers generally get the final garment measurements with instructions to cut and stitch the fabric before shrinkage but without the benefit of knowing how much additional fabric if necessary. This creates a problem for the manufacturer because there is currently no way to expand the fabric measurements from the final garment measurements to the pre-shrinkage cut and stitch dimensions other than by trial and error.
This trial and error method is costly and time consuming, and also has inherent problems with consistency. A manufacturer will receive a fabric pattern for a garment that gives the desired sale measurements. Then it is up to the manufacturer to expand those measurements out so that when the garment is stitched together and washed it will hopefully shrink to the designers final garment measurements. If it does not then modifications need to be made and the process is repeated.
This current system gives rise to a need for a method which can, with considerable accuracy estimate the expansion parameters to convert a designer's final garment measurements into to a pre-shrinkage cut and assemble measurement, such that when the manufacture is asked to cut and assemble the garment before shrinking the fabric, most if not all of the trial and error process of measurement conversion can be eliminated. This invention overcomes the shortcomings of the currently used systems and provides a method for calculating the measurement increases necessary to convert final garment measurements to pre-shrinkage cut and stitch measurements.